


Someone Needs to Do Something

by moodymarshmallow



Series: The Elf and the Apostate [23]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 15:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3452267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodymarshmallow/pseuds/moodymarshmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a warden when the Breach opens is a dangerous and frightening thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone Needs to Do Something

**Author's Note:**

> It's important to note that this fic is out of the continuity of The Elf and The Apostate series. It is canon, but happens long after the previous fic in the continuity (which as of this date is Plans for the Future.) Fics that properly follow the continuity will be ordered before this fic in the series when they are posted. 
> 
> This fic also includes major spoilers for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Anders dipped his fingers into a basin of water, chilling it until there was thin layer of ice on the surface. He broke the ice to dip the end of a cloth into that water, dampen it, and squeeze out the excess.

Theron was feverish again. He lay on his belly on the sofa near the open window, sweat matting the wispy loose hair he couldn’t fit into his braid. He didn’t look up when Anders rubbed that sweat from the back of his neck with the cold cloth, but his chest rose and fell in a soft, relieved sigh. Getting out of Orlais had given Anders a reprieve from the strange, panicky feeling of death on the horizon, but for Theron there had been no such relief from the false calling. Plans to travel to the Dales and the Anderfels were scrapped as Theron’s condition deteriorated, and the only reason they traveled north to Nevarra was that the further from the Breach they got, the better both of them felt.

Outside Anders could still see the Breach, but it was now distant, a pale swirling green on the horizon that couldn’t swallow them in—couldn’t form rifts that spat out demons at an astounding rate. 

Theron had known at the start that the calling wasn’t real, though he could never quite articulate why. He spent hours—actual hours—trying to talk it out to Anders, who listened, but needed no more reassurance than the simple fact that Theron thought it was couldn’t be true. Anders suspected his soft spot for Theron and his desire not to die had made him eager to believe anything, but in time he needed no reassurance. Outside of a vague feeling of impending dread and a few dreams that, compared to those on the night of his Joining, were not really all that terrifying, there were no other signs that the taint would overcome him.

So they had continued their travels, not ignoring the Breach, but also not straying from their purpose—to find a cure for the taint. It was two weeks into a pleasant stay in Orlais that Theron began to deteriorate. While sleep never came easy to him, he seemed to lose the ability to do it entirely. If Anders didn’t sedate him with magic he either stayed up for days at a time, silent and sullen, or woke screaming in the middle of the night, inconsolable until the terror passed.

It was only after traveling north that Theron got any relief, and they continued that way until again his sleep failed to come and he spent days dozing off standing up.

Nevarra had been Theron’s idea. The Mortalitasi were only spoken of in low voices by people whose eyes darted from side to side as if even now they expected Templars to descend upon them just for speaking their name. But when they did speak, it was of an entire country of powerful mages who knew more about death than anyone else in the world. So it was with tenuous hope that they left Orlais for Nevarra.

They stayed now in an apartment overlooking an enormous market. Silk shades protected stalls from the sun and merchants sold everything from cherries and goat’s milk to runes enchanted to cool one’s house on the hottest days. Anders wondered about those runes as he had seen no tranquil since entering the city, but suspected that if there were any—already tales of how lenient the Templars were here before the war had reached his ears—they were still in the circle of magi, where many of the mages still lived, if only out of familiarity.

Theron stirred, shaking Anders from his thoughts.

"Vhenan," Theron murmured, reaching for Anders as he shifted to his side.

"I’m here." He knelt next to the sofa so Theron could wrap an arm around his shoulders. “Did you get some sleep?”

“No.” Theron paused, an indecisive look crossing his exhausted face. “Maybe. I’m not sure.” He pushed his face into the hollow of Anders’ neck, his skin clammy. “I don’t remember sleeping.” His voice was an aimless whisper, near inaudible as his lips moved against Anders’ skin.

“You slept last night.” Anders dipped the cloth again into the icy water and rubbed it across Theron’s forehead, into his hair. Theron was silent so long that Anders became convinced that he’d fallen asleep right then, and had just begun to shift himself into a more comfortable position when Theron’s breath came again on his neck.

“Right. After we had that…” A small mental struggle passed and Anders let it do so without attempting to fill in a word. Theron’s thoughts had been foggy for weeks. “The cold soup,” he finally supplied. “I liked that.”

Anders pressed his lips to Theron’s temple. “We can have it again tonight. The market opens soon. They’re setting up their stalls now.”

“Are they?”

Theron shifted again and this time sat up, wincing at the stiffness that had come from days of laying dazed and restless in chairs and settees. Anders offered help that Theron didn’t take, eventually sitting beside him on the sofa as he looked out on the darkening courtyard below their apartment.

“This can’t last,” Theron said with a sudden darkness. Anders tried to follow his gaze but found it staring somewhere in the middle distance above the rooftops, not below where dozens of people scurried around erecting stalls and unfurling silk canopies like sails. “It wasn’t like this during the Blight.” Anders forced a smile when Theron turned to him, the dying light outside catching the reflective undertone in Theron’s eyes to make them yellow. “The Breach has to be closed and I can’t go back to Ferelden to do it.”

“We’re here for a reason,” Anders began, but hushed when Theron cupped his cheeks and looked gravely into his face.

“You need to go back to Orlais without me. Find the wardens there and get them to h—“

“You have lost your bloody mind if you think I’m going anywhere without you.” Anders inadvertently kicked the bowl as he reached for Theron, tugging him unwillingly into his arms. “Don’t you ever suggest that again,” he hissed into his ear while water spread on the floral rug beneath the sofa. “Never.”  

“This is about more than us,” Theron said with a halfhearted struggle, though he gave up quickly in favor of resting his head on Anders’ shoulder. “Somebody needs to do something.”

A soft jingle came from the doorway—an alert that Ser Pounce-a-Lot had returned from doing whatever he had gone off to do—and just as Anders turned to see if he’d once again brought in some kind of new mouse or bird that would have to be disposed of, there was a sound like the roar of a high dragon from outside. The overturned bowl jittered across the floor, and from the shelves came the sounds of overturning books and shattering glass.

It ended again with the sound of Pounce’s bell as the cat hopped onto the sofa with them, unperturbed, seemingly unaffected by the sudden tremor.

“I think somebody did something,” Anders said softly, and together he and Theron stared at the place in the sky where the Breach had been.


End file.
